Bodmin
Moor, a unique granite upland, covers 45,000 acres in total with most of the
land lying at a comparatively low height of 200 to a 230 meters. Its modest
height, combined with its southwesterly location, means that it is one of the
warmest and wettest uplands in Britain. Although a wild, uninhabited landscape
on its heights this was once not always so.

Roughtor has an
Iron Age hill fort on the summit, a number of Bronze Age settlements, an ancient
holy well and the ancient chapel of St Michael's. There are also hut circles,
field systems, ceremonial monuments, menhirs, a stone circle and an embanked
avenue all found in the area and mostly dating from 2000-1000 BC. Today the
isolated tors and valleys are a perfect habitat for buzzard, raven, sparrow hawk
and kestrel. The song of the skylark is a delight and on the grassy hills snipe, stonechats
and wheatear thrive

The
rivers Fowey, Lynher, Inny and De Lank spring from the marshy upland of the
moor. Although dangerous for walkers the marshes are a rich habitat for
dragonflies, damselflies and the consequent birds that prey on them, like dipper
and kingfisher. In the marshes we find rare plants like sundew and orchid as
well as the more common ragged robin. Otters have returned here and in the
valleys the mineshaft ruins provide an ideal home for bats.

Mankind created a pattern of
enclosures and settlements that are so much a part of today's landscape. The
medieval period left its mark with a number of small buildings and structures
associated with hill farming. St Michael's Chapel was first licensed in the 14th
century but is possibly older and associated with a hermit who lived in a small
building below the summit. He was also associated with the site of a Holy Well
and the present day remains of a cross. Then many of the farmsteads on
remote hills were abandoned. The ruins of these homes and barns can still be
seen and the ancient paths and lanes that led from the hills to the surrounding
valleys. Farmhouses still occupied today were most probably first settled long
before the arrival of William the Conqueror

In
more recent times, granite
was surface quarried and numerous part worked millstones are now evident. There
were also granite quarries & china clay pits. Stone from the De Lank Quarry
was used for many famous landmarks. The Eddystone Lighthouse 1882: Tower Bridge 1890; &Beachy Head Lighthouse in 1900.

It has also been used for
farmhouses, terraces, churches, crosses, roundhouses, lighthouses, harbour
walls, docks, kerb stones, setts and bridges and of course ancients and modern
monuments.

The
twin heights of Roughtor and Brown Willy [Cornish Bron Wennyly = Swallows' Hill]
have always had the power to
attract. Wide open spaces tend to enforce mans feeling of insignificance in the scheme of things.
Large groups of people are not often seen on the high moor. However, a gathering of some 10,000 teetotalers held a meeting here in 1844.
Perhaps they felt nearer to their God way up on the heights?

In the past the usual walkers on the moor
were the labourers and dairy maids of the working farms scattered about. One
such couple was a local dairymaid, Charlotte Dymond, and her young man, Mathew
Weeks. They both worked at the same farm andhad
been courting each other for some time.
One Sunday in April, in the same year as the teetotalers meeting, Charlotte
walked out with him across the moor, intending it was said to break up with
Mathew. She was later found with her throat cut at
Roughtor Ford
and the evidence pointed to her spurned lover. He confessed to the crime of
murder and paid the ultimate penalty when he was hung at Bodmin
Jail.

Ever
since that time, especially on the anniversary of her death, Charlotte has been
seen walking alone in the area, clad in a white gown, a red shawl and a silk
bonnet tied with a red ribbon.
Sentries of the Old Volunteers Unit stationed in Roughtor were very reluctant to
stand duty there, so convinced were they of her ghostly presence. A memorial
stone marks the site of her murder and the story of poor Charlotte's
demise has been lyrically immortalized in
"The Ballad of Charlotte Dymond" by Cornish poet Charles Causley.

Beneath these twin Tors on
Cardinham Moor can be seen a stone row named Colvannick. Compared with other stone rows on Bodmin Moor this
one is made up of giant stones. The southern one was about 6ft high when
upright. In the eastern sector at
Craddock Moor they struggle to be seen above the grass. Here on a ridge with
views to the east and west it was built to be seen. At evening the view
to the west is of the shining waters off Padstow.

A tour of the
some of the villages on the moor will perhaps take you by surprise, as they are often not
what you would expect. They are quite picturesque and are set in gentle dips in
the upland. Thus sheltered from the worst of the wind and weather trees grow and
provide further shelter. Most have a church.

St
Breward was once known as Simonward, they say after one Simon Ward the
brewer to King Arthur's Court! The original church was Norman but the building
today is mainly 15th century with Victorian restoration. The tower at 750 ft above sea
level is probably the highest in Cornwall. A
picturesque granite clapper bridge straddles the De Lank River between Blisland
and St Breward and carries the moorland road between the two villages.

Blisland
is one of the few
villages in Cornwall with a traditional village green, more usually associated
with rural villages in the heart of England. It has a Norman Church with
later additions but with much of the medieval woodwork remaining,
including the barrel roof, due to a skilled restoration in the 19th century.
East of the village is the Jubilee Rock, a giant volcanic rock, perhaps
the oldest on the moor, some ten foot high and nearly twenty-five feet across.

Lieutenant
John Rogers of Pendrift carved this stone with various coats of arms and
insignia to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the coronation
of George III that fell on 25 Oct. 1810.
It took him over 12 months and as well as the Royal Coat of Arms there were alsothose of the Duke of Cornwall, Sir A. O. Molesworth, baronet and Viscount
Falmouth and afigure of Britannia.
The carvings were then painted in appropriate colours and 200 years later faint
lines could still be traced on the rock.

The church at
Altarnun also with a high tower is known as 'The Cathedral of the Moor'.
Sixteenth century craftsmen signed their names on the bench ends in the church.They are carved with local scenes. Close by is the holy well of St Nonna.
Adjacent to what was once the Ring O' Bells Inn is the old Methodist Chapel.
Built at the end of the 18th century with its unusual granite steps leading to
the floor above. One day the floor of the chapel collapsed during morning
worship, and the proprietor of the Ring O' Bells, hearing the commotion, rushed
out and shouted at them 'So the Devil got 'ee after all!'

Over
the door is a carved slate head of John Wesley, carved in 1836 by gifted local
boy Nevil Northey Burnard. He was born in Altarnun in 1818 and his work includes the statue to Richard Lander
the explorer. This is high on a column at the top of
Lemon Street in Truro. Nevil came from a long line of builders and sculptors and
more of his work can be seen on gravestones in the churchyard. He went on to
achieve national fame by sculpting the head of the Prince of Wales, later Edward
VII. Many commissions followed, but after the death of his young daughter, he
returned to the West Country and became a drifter, dying a pauper's death in
Redruth Workhouse in 1878. A plaque to his memory is sited on the house
alongside the chapel which once was the inn.

Trewint
is village high on the moor and in
1743 Digory Isbell, a journeyman stonemason, and his wife Elisabeth lived in a
small granite cottage at the far end of narrow Duck Street. In the summer of
that year, when Digory was away
working, two of John Wesley's agents arrived tired and hungry. They
knocked at the cottage door asking for refreshment and were made welcome by
Elisabeth. On leaving they knelt and prayed 'without a book'.A year later on April 2 1744
John Wesley himself was entertained in the cottage and later recorded in
his Journal..........

"I
preached at five and rode towards Launceston. The hills were covered with snow,
as in the depths of winter. About two we came to Trewint, wet and weary enough,
having been battered by rain and hail for some hours. I preached in the evening
to many more than the house would contain,

One
evening a few months later, Digory Isbell read in his bible of the Shunamite woman who built a
Prophet's Chamber for a man of God. He saw this as a divine command and set
about building a two-roomed extension to his home. John Wesley and his preachers
would use this house for meetings whenever they were in the district. A
flourishing Methodist Society was formed but as other larger chapels were opened
the rooms fell into disuse. Digory
Isbell died in 1795,and Elizabeth survived him, blind, deaf and bed ridden until
1805. Both found comfort in the hymns of Charles Wesley and Elizabeth often
quoted from the one below.

I long to behold him array'd
With glory and light from above;
The King in his beauty display'd,
His beauty of holiest love:

I languish and sigh to be there,
Where Jesus has fixt his abode:
O when shall we meet in the air,
And fly to the mountain of God?

After
the death of the Isbells the beginning of a legend can be discerned in the
tradition that one could hear the bells of heaven ring by the simple expedient
of running twelve times round the Isbell tomb and then putting a finger in each
ear.

Passing over the main
A30 road,
which more or less separates the moor onto two halves, we find several places
associated with the Arthurian legend.

Arthur's Bed
is near Trewortha Tor, and is an almost man shaped depression worn
into the stone by years of harsh moorland weathering

.

If you wish to visit the site, seek advice from
the owners of Trewortha Farm, and from October 2005 visit www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk
to view any restrictions that may be in place for the area."

King Arthur’s Hall
is stone circle where the imagination can take a
rest as the scene is re-created for you. If you have
seen the film 'Excalibur' and remember the scene where the knights and druid
priests hold a ceremony on a hill top henge – then this is such a site, with
the "Hall" set a little lower in a shallow bowl.
When the sun shines, like it only can in Cornwall, and the reeds in the centre are
all topped with cottony blossom, then you will hear the breeze whistling through
the marsh and overhead the skylarks climbing ever higher in their ascending
song. Everything is perfect and there descends an air of serenity as you feel at
peace with all the ghosts of the past.

King Arthur's Downs is set a little apart to the east of King
Arthur's Hall. The beauty of the wide expanse of moor is set with a destroyed double circle
Only one or two stones remains upright and it is not easy to work out
which stones belong to which circle.

Trethevy
Quoit
was once called King Arthur's Quoit but is now known locally as “The Giant's
House” In 1605 it was "called in Latin Casus gigantis, a little
howse raised of mightie stones". It is one of Cornwall’s finest
and most impressive dolmens. The capstone
is 12ft long and, in its half-fallen state, 15ft high. There is also a natural
hole piercing its highest point. The function of this port-hole is still a
mystery: experts speculate that it was used for astronomical observations. It
has six uprights -originally seven - each averaging about 10 ft. A strange
doorway cut out of the entrance stone may have been for the passage of bodies.
Curiously, the sloping angle of the top of this hole is reminiscent of many
free-standing stones

On
the road from Redgate to
Minions is an enclosure. A plaque set in the wall reads:

"
'King Doniert's Stone' in Cornish
'Men Myghtern Doniert'. These two granite cross bases are
decorated in the late Ninth Century style and probably date from that time.

The
shorter stone carries a Latin inscription"Doniert progant Pro Anima"
- "Doniert ordered [this cross] for [the good of] his soul". Doniert was probably
Durngarth, King of Cornwall who was drowned in AD 875. The two stones have
rectangular sockets on their top and probably carried wooden crosses"

Durngarth tragic drowning, possibly in the nearby River Fowey, was recorded in
the “Annales Cambriae.”

Minions Village c 1890.

The evidence of tin stream works
are found all across the Moor, where valleys were dug for the tin gravels
and leats built to bring water for the separation processes. In the 19th century the
tin and copper mining became a powerful industry and with thegranite and china clay quarrying created communities where the
employment was to be found. Villages such as Minions prospered greatly during
the mid 1800's when Captain Jack Clymo discovered a rich copper lode By 1863
over 4000 men, women and children were employed in the twenty or so mines
surrounding Caradon. There are still remains of the engine houses standing, one
of which has been turned into a heritage centre.

When,
as well as the copper, tin and a little gold was also discovered share prices
rocketed. Caradon mine shares rapidly went from 1s 6d (7p) to £64 with good
dividends. There were also of course many sharp deals and highly speculative
investments that inevitably turned sour. The Liskeard-Caradon
railway passed within a few hundred yards of the workers cottages.

Close to the village of Minions is a famous
local landmark known as the Cheesewring This was
at risk as the quarry workings at its base crept closer and closer.

There was an outcry when it seemed that the
encroaching quarry would swallow it up. As a result the landowners, the Duchy of Cornwall, set strict limits and
these were shown on the ground by fleur- de- lys, and also marks cut into the
granite and painted white. This is probably the earliest example of geological
conservation in the UK. In the 1860s a prop was put under one side of the Tor,
which reduced the dramatic appearance somewhat.

Natural, rather
than man made, the Cheesewring on the southern edge of Bodmin Moor, is a series
of giant flat boulders, some over 30 feet in circumference, with the largest
ones now left sitting on the smaller ones. Although formed by natural erosion,
Cornish folklore tells the story of the battle between the saints and the giants
which account for them being there. The giants were
annoyed that the saints were getting a better deal than they were.

The
saints were
setting up TOO many preaching crosses, taking TOO many wells as holy, enjoying
TOO much attention and claiming TOO many tithes from the hard won harvest of the
land and sea. St Tue, [no pun intended, I’m sure] who was a particularly small saint,
heard the giants arguing about the best way to rid Cornwall of the saints. St
Teu decided to challenge Uther, the leader of the giants and a particularly
large and strong giant, to a trial of strength. They both agreed the terms that
if the giants won the saints would leave Cornwall forever, but if the saints won
the giants would convert to Christianity.

Twelve large
rocks were gathered for the contest. Uther picked up the smallest rock and
hurled it onto the summit of Stowes Hill. St Tue picked up a larger rock, and
managed to throw it exactly the same distance, landing on the smaller first
rock. So the contest continued, larger rocks piling on smaller ones, until Uther
failed with the last rock and it rolled back down the hill.St Tue muttered a prayer to all the saints in Heaven to give him strength
to top the pile and so defeat the giants. He picked up the last stone and hurled
it high to land on the top of the heap. Thus the saints won and the giants under
Uther abandoned their sinful ways. The Cheesewring remains to this day as a
reminder of the struggle between the Giants and the Saints in Cornwall.

A well-known character that made his home near the Cheesewring in earlier
times was one Daniel Gumb. Born in the Tamar Valley in April 1703 he moved up onto the moor to
be where his work was. He was a stonecutter and as well as stone for
building purposes he also cut gravestones, some of which can still be be found in local
churchyards. What we see now of his home is only a small part.
It was once sited on the
south-facing slope of Stowes Hill or what is now the Cheesewring Quarry. The
large slab roof was originally 30ft by 10 ft and Daniel tunneled under it
putting other slabs in to support the weight until he had three rooms. Sitting on the roof of his house Daniel studied the stars by night and solved
mathematical problems by day. The carving of Euclid’s theorem on the roof can also be found on other slabs of granite east of the old railway line into the
quarry.

In this
primitive house he brought up at least 9 children, it is thought that he had 13
but some died early. The date carved on the stone beside the house "D GUMB
1735" is said to be the date of his third marriage and was part of the door post
for the house.
When the Cheesewring quarry was started in the mid 1800s the home was broken up,
Gumb had died in 1773 and many of his offspring had emigrated to the Americas.
What remains now is only a small part, possibly placed in amongst the finger
dumps of the quarry as a shelter to use during blasting.

.

The
railway at the Cheesewring opened in 1844 and his was used to transport the
silver-grey granite to Liskeard and Looe for export; the old track is still
visible in parts.

Hurlers
Long Tom
Minions
Mine

Not
far from the Cheesewring, you find a track that takes you to the Hurlers.
The historian William Camden wrote in 1610:

“The
neighbouring inhabitants terme them Hurlers, as being by devout and godly error
perswaded that they had been men sometime transformed into stones, for profaning
the Lord's Day with hurling the ball: but in truth show a note of such victory,
or else are so set, for landmarks and boundaries"

According to legend, it is difficult to count the number of the Hurlers at
Minions, but should you do so correctly, a misfortune will befall you. Surrounded by deserted mines and other
industrial wreckage these three stone circles are built close together and all
in a line. They vary in size from 105 feet to 135 feet across. The largest is
the central circle and this seems to be the focus of the site due to its size
and the fact that it has a central stone. Built in a high moorland pass, between
the slopes of Stowe's Hill to the north and Caradon hill to the south, the site
is strategically placed between the tributaries of the River Fowey to the west
and the River Lynher, which feeds the Tamar, to the east.

A little way
along beside the road from the Hurlers is Long Tom or the Longstone, a Christianised
Menhir, having had a wheel cross carved on the top

At the edge of the granite the land falls away,
down to the slate. The rivers fall away
too and at Golitha Falls areextravagant
ferns, lichens and mosses and bluebells in springtime.

You might also call to mind, when driving between Minions [at 300 ft on
granite]& Upton Cross [at 175
on slate], that you have to change gear or put on the breaks due to a
geological event that occurred around 290 million years ago; that's when the hills
between were formed

, along time before man ever set foot on the moorlands!

Before
we take our leave of this land, fashioned by the hand of both nature and
man, we must visit one last little spot that often
gets missed.

Not far from Bolventor is a little lane that leads off to the
south. At the end of this is the enigmatic hamlet and church of Temple. It
originally came into being in the 12th century when the Knights Templar
built the church and possibly some ancillary dwellings as a refuge for pilgrims
who were passing through this wild stretch of country on their way to the Holy
Land.

Travellers
from Ireland often avoided the perils of the Land's End by disembarking at
Padstow. They would then sail up-river, perhaps as far as Wadebridge, and then journey
overland to the Fowey river. They would finally disembark from the port
of Fowey itself, then the busiest harbour on the south coast. The Knights
Templar were harried, tortured, and suppressed 700 years ago on trumped up
charges of pagan ritual and satanistic practices. Their church of St. Catherine of
Alexandria at Temple, sited on their ancient abbey settlement, was finally suppressed in 1312
and taken over by the Knights Hospitallers. However, it still remained
outside the authority of the bishop. John Norden the mapmaker, who visited in
1584 described it as..........

"a
lawless church where manie badd marriages are consumated and where are wonte to
be buried such as wrowght violent death on themselves"

Before
an act was passed in 1753 declaring such marriages illegal, runaway couples eloped
across the moor. Unfortunately the old registers were lost which could have made
interesting reading. With the decline in pilgrim traffic and later as a result
of the act Temple lost its passing congregation and presumably a fruitful source
of income and it soon fell into disuse. No services were held there for
more than a century and the building succumbed to the wind and the weather
A tramp, who was sheltering inside, was killed when the remains of the roof fell
in; surely he must have offended God gravely to have brought His wrath down on
him so!. Another visitor in 1769 remarked that ....

"
Temple is a deserted village, the only one I have ever seen. Some years ago not
a single person lived in the township......only one little farmstead is now
inhabited and elsewhere only the ruins of half a dozen or more remain; the body
of the church is down and naught but the chancel remains."

In
Illustrated Itinerary of Cornwall from England in the Nineteenth Century – C
Redding (1842):-there is this description.

“We reached Jamaica Inn at night-fall, in a drizzling south-west rain, and
on foot, having left the mail to examine the Four-Hole Stone which stands to the
roadside, about a mile from the Inn, on a desert heath, called Temple Moor;
truly, ‘a waste, howling wilderness.’………it contains only three
miserable huts, and the remnant of a dilapidated church.”

It was rebuilt in 1883 along the original foundations using some of the stones
that were still to be found on the site. On many of these stones were the
original carvings and
some are still visible on the little sexton's building in the churchyard. This
may have been built on the site of the holy well as a channel of water
passes through its interior and out of the wall into a basin.

It
was said the last two Temple men were hung for sheep stealing in the 1700's and
then there were no men left in the village. This must have been rectified by new
residents coming in as even here they lost a son of the village in the 'great war to end all
wars'. The Memorial bears witness to one....................

"Jack Pomeroy, killed in France,19 July

Although today time seems to have passed this place
by it is very much haunted by the spirits of the past. Inside the church are many
references to its Templar connections. Cryptic symbols are contained within its
stained-glass windows and carved statues. It was said that here the cult of the
Rose was once practiced on this site and the sanctity of motherhood itself was venerated. Women,
married or single, could attend their laying-in in the little mission
hospice and their condition was honored
as a gift from God. Some say this was too close to the old pagan goddess worship and
it led to the discrediting and ultimate persecution of the order of the Templar
Knights by the
established church. The signs of the Rose and the Cross are ever present,
even to the stones in the graveyard outside and on the little well building.
Some of those who searched for the Holy Grail believed it to be a metaphor for
womankind and her power to bear children. In most portrayals of the Holy Grail
Story the precious cup or chalice is borne by a maiden, the significance of
which might be that "Sant Graal" could also mean
Holy Blood. The doctrine of the old pagan beliefs with its Goddess worship
was repeated in the story of
the Virgin birth. The question is were the Templars practicing the old religion
or the new? Whichever it was the church believed they had become too powerful
and they would have to go. Below is Arthur Rackham's illustration of the
Grail maiden from Alfred Pollard's 1917 Romance of King Arthur and his Knights
of the Round Table.

If
you linger awhile in this holy enclosure the air is filled with the sound of
silence and the world seems far away. The whispering wind lulls the
leaves into life and then all goes still and quiet again but you will not feel
alone here. The perception of right and wrong changes with time and in1777, when the little sanctuary at Temple was a virtual ruin, a young
woman called Edith Gilpin of Temple gave birth to an illegitimate child.
For her 'sin' she was ordered, by the great and good of the Bishops Court, to
go bareheaded and barefooted to morning service in Blisland and Cardinham
churches to make a public confession of her guilt. Wearing only a white sheet,
she endured this ritual on successive Sundays until the clergy had decided she
was purged. This description of her appearance is not unlike the young woman in
the illustration above.

Has
Edith forgiven them who presumed to judge her or does she still haunt the Moor?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

With
thanks to the many photographers and researchers who give freely to the world
wide web of their time and energy in the interest of furthering
knowledge and to those who allow their work to be downloaded for free, provided
there is no commercial gain among whom are the following